Building Blocks
by AllIwantedwasL
Summary: Mello and Near and their difficult relationship. Dramatic, fluffy, sweet, and sexy. Set in Wammy's House for the most part. MXN, MXM, other pairings to surface. YAOI!
1. Chapter 1

The way Near ate mashed potatoes could only be described as "_cute."_ The word "cute", when searched on as Mello had immediately done after a dinner he had squirmed through while barely tolerating the utter cuteness of Near's tiny mouth and panda likeness, comes with a whole collection of synonyms:

"Adorable, beautiful, charming, dainty, delightful, pleasant, pretty, ambrosial, appealing, attractive, captivating, darling, dear, delectable," Mello cleared his throat, a severe pink flush tainting his pale skin, "um, delicious, dishy, dreamy, fetching, heavenly," he paused again, glancing up from his paper. The waves of Near's paper-white hair did indeed look_ heavenly_. The boy himself was seated on the floor of his expansive bedroom, folding said heavenly locks between his fingers. He did not look at Mello.

"Hot, luscious, pleasing, precious, sexy, suave." It sounded almost like some bizarre rap song. This thought gave way to a strange image of Near in a bikini. Mello blushed a deeper shade of pink, now a rather shocking crimson, completely oblivious to the fact that Near had stopped playing with his hair. He was gazing at Mello in a way which meant business.

"You forgot bewitching. Ravishing." Mello peered at Near over the top of his paper. He wasn't surprised Near knew more synonyms than he did. "_Foxy."_ That word, however, did surprise him.

"Ah. Yes. F-foxy." He srawled it in a sloppy jumble of letters at the top of the page. Beside '_beautiful'._

"I think that's the extent of _'cute'_ s' synonyms." Near said. "You're bound to get an 'A'." Their english assignment was an easy one, because it was the holidays, they were only expected to list all the synonyms for a word which, _here was the twist_, in their opinion described someone in their class.

"Thanks." Mello folded his paper over and stuffed it into the back pocket of his pants. "And thanks for those last, um, three words." He made to turn around, to scamper out of Near's room and away to his own, in which he could safely assess his unorthodox attraction to Near.

"Where are you going?" The younger boy spoke from the floor. "You haven't told me who _'cute'_ describes."

Mello blanched. He hadn't expected Near's interest. "Um, what?" He was doing the only thing he could think to do in times of distress: play dumb.

"Let me put it another way:" Near took one of Mello's dangling hands and held it in both of his. "Whom do you think is cute in English 4?"

Near's huge black eyes were pulling Mello down- or was that Near himself? Mello didn't really care at this point. His mind was racing for an appropriate answer to the boy's question:_"YOU! I Think you're the cutest fucking thing I've ever seen! Frankly, I think I might love your intelligent little hiney!" _And, because Mello was fourteen and hormonal:_ "Let's _make_ love, Near! Right here in front of all your fucking robots and lego towers!" _However, what he said instead surprised both of them:

"Matt!"

"Really?"

Near let go of Mello, letting him tumble rather unceremoniously onto the floor in front of him.

Maybe it was shyness, or perhaps a slip of the tongue. Mello could have just as easily proclaimed his love for Roger, their caretaker, in regards to how he felt about the redheaded headache that was Mail Jeevas. The boy laughed too loud, didn't listen, and seemed to get top grades without ever raising a finger. Mello loathed him. But now the damage was done. He couldn't find a way to rewind; the only thing he could do was go into fast-forwarded time. And for Mello, with nerves came anger. At himself and at Near for ever batting a lash in his direction.

"What do _you_ care!" Mello pulled himself up off the floor, sending a swift kick to one of Near's towers. As he ran from the room, Mello could think only one thing: _"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"_


	2. Chapter 2

Mello sank to the ground, breathing heavily. He smelled sweat on his skin, and agrily wiped a sheen of it from his forehead. After bursting out of the double oak front doors at Whammy's, he had hurtled indefinitely across the grounds until he felt his lungs were going to rip out of his chest. He was sitting under a large weeping willow, the tips of its bowed branches brushing the surface of a frozen white pond beside it. Mello fingered a smooth, cold pebble nestled into the frost. It made his fingers feel numb, the way he wished the rest of him would. Instead, Mello just felt queasy. The contents of his stomach ranged, because of the season and L's odd eating traditions which he foisted off on Watari, who foisted them off on Roger, who decided that the boys would all do a little better if they all _ate_ like their predecessor too, from green tea ice cream to chocolate stuffed croissants. Mello's stomach lurched.

"Hey, stranger." A tendril of acrid smoke made stark contrast to the bare coldness of the dead trees and frozen pond beside Mello. He didn't need to turn around to know whose voice it was. He hurled the pebble at the ice, where it bounced across the surface before skidding to a stop.

_Please go away._ Again, Mello's mouth did not agree with his mind. "Fuck off with your tar-stick, Matt. Second-hand smoke kills."

"Someone's on the rag, I take it." Matt jerked his cigarette away as Mello turned around and swung at it. He was smirking, his red mop of hair tousled and clownish in their environment. Sticking the cigarette back between his teeth, he said: "Jesus, Mello, just calm the fuck down, alright?"

"I will _not _calm the fuck down, you pompous cock! And you're not fucking OLD enough to smoke!" Mello could feel all the humiliation and repressed emotion come steaming out of him as he shouted "L WOULDN'T FUCKING WANT YOU TO POLLUTE YOUR FUCKING NASTY BODY!" Before he knew what had happened, before he could even close his mouth, Matt had calmly but swiftly forced Mello into the hard, cold earth, his lips tasting of tobacco and cherries.

His hands were on Mello's zipper, his hot, wet mouth was on Mello's own colder, dryer mouth, and his hips were pressing Mello's thighs against a stick in the ground.

_Oh Shit! What's going on?! I hate Matt! Near is so much- OH! That felt nice...Near could never have made me feel that..._ And so, as the years passed, as Mello grew too old to care about grades, as he eventually ran away from his childhood and all its horrible, sticky memories, he sank into a sort of addiction to obliviousness, beginning a process in which sex muffled bad feelings, where orgasms masked love, a twisted, soul-less void of thrusts and grunts, where Mello was free to simply- _exist, _without fear of embarrassment or guilt. He fucked a lot. He had never made love.


	3. Chapter 3

_Three years later. Mello has run away, and is currently operating a large cross-atlantic illegal organized crime group he calls _

_"Project B.U.R.N."_

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"Say it." The woman knelt between Mello's legs, her hands trembling. The men scattered around the room were laughing, jeering and egging Mello on.

She mumbled something into his thigh.

"What?" Mello took her chin and forced her face up, so that she was staring at him. "_Look_ at me when I'm talking to you. What? Does this- " He drew a gloved hand across a mangled pink network of burns which decorated the left side of his body- "scare you?"

Her shoulders shook, and tears brimmed in her eyelids. "Thank you." She said.

"Fuck you." Mello kicked her, just under her ribs, hard, and she crumpled in a heap to the floor, sobbing and jerking in terror.

He stood up and lazily drew a gun from the waistband of his leather pants. He cocked it and pointed it at the shaking figure.

"Fuck _all _of you. What is she? She didn't do a damn bit of good, did she?" He bent over and and rustled her hair. "Blew our cover, didn't you?" The gun, nestled up under her ear, made Mello smile. The hollow sound it made as it went off made him frown.

A puckered hole in the other side of the woman's head clarified her death to the room of slavering onlookers. Her hair matted with warm blood, pooling and trickling about her face and neck.

"Clean this up." Mello nudged her limp body with his boot before stalking out of the dimly lit basement B.U.R.N. called its headquarters. He extracted a bar of silver-wrapped chocolate from his coat pocket and bit into the corner.

_*snap*_ A perfect, clean break. He chewed slowly, thoughtfully, as he strode onto the smog-choked streets of L.A.

A car, red but dusty with age, was waiting for the man with the warm gun. Its occupant was smoking a cigarette and trying to get the car to start.

"Matt..." Mello plopped down in the passenger seat.

"Hm?" Matt rubbed Mello's thigh.

"Oh, Matt..."

"What, Mells?"

"I have to get out of here. Drive fast."

As Matt sped off down the dark streets, Mello felt the old familiar heat rise to his cheeks. It was anger and embarassment and, as always, regret. An emotional cocktail he drank often. He hated killing people. It was useless and, he knew on some level, wrong.

Mello looked over at Matt, his arm draped over the back of Mello's seat, his cigarette glowing red. Mello remembered the days when he used to yell at Matt whenever he smoked. He would stalk off and Matt wouldn't be allowed to sleep in their bed until the smell wore off. Nowadays, Mello was hardly ever home often enough to care what happened to Matt. Matt knew Mello was sleeping around, and, even though he denied it, Mello thought Matt was probably back to girls. When they were home together they were either fighting or avoiding each other. Matt slept on the couch.

"Did you get milk?" Mello was suddenly furious at Matt's cigarette. At Matt's draped arm. At his stupid goggles.

"Um, was I s'posed to?" Matt blew a smoke ring out the window.

"Yes! You do nothing! I just _had to kill someone_, the least YOU could do was buy some milk!" Mello's voice was pitching higher and higher.

"D'ya scream like that at _B.U.R.N._?" Matt's voice was mocking. "You sound like a little girl."

"Shut _up_!" Mello had twisted in his seat to scream directly at Matt. "Just _shut up! _You used to like that I sounded like a girl! But now you're off _fucking_ a real one, I don't

really matter, do I!"

"Oh, you should talk! Every night you're at some underaged boys' house on your knees, pretending to be the _old_ Mello!"

The roar of the car's engine was the only sound. Both men knew an invisible line had just been crossed. The past was just that: the _past_. They were never supposed to talk about it. Matt shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"_Let. Me. Out." _ Mello's voice was suddenly dangerously quiet. Every cell in his body was throbbing with hatred. Matt flicked his cigarette out the window. The car slowed. The streetlights slipped silently across the windshield. Mello unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the glove compartment. His gun glimmered amidst a stack of bills Matt had stuffed into the compartment last month. Mello grabbed it and, as the car pulled over, opened his door.

"Goodbye, asshole. I'll get my stuff next week. Don't be home." Mello stood with his back to Matt as he said goodbye. He didn't want Matt to see him crying.

Long after the sound of Matt's car had faded into the muggy night, Mello stood there, tears rolling down his cheeks. He cried until he couldn't feel the ache in his stomach. The tears dried on his face as he started walking down the street.


	4. Chapter 4

"Zakk?" Mello was leaning against a rotting warehouse, a payphone pressed up against his ear. "Hey, yeah, I was wondering if I could crash with you tonight...no...m-hm..."

He sank to the ground. The phone crackled ominously. A breeze had picked up, blowing Mello's shoulder-length blonde hair around his scarred face. The view was desolate, empty save for a fence surrounding a vacant lot. Every time the wind blew past it, it creaked noisily. Mello was down to the last phone number he knew besides Matt's and...well, that other number which was permanently tattooed to his mind, but was simply out of the question...Mello shook his head, clearing it as it began to wander.

"_Mello?"_

"Yeah?"

"_Are you gonna be alright?" _Zakk Irius, his affiliate in B.U.R.N. and a rather "close friend", sounded tired. It was understandable. It must have been about 2:30am. Nevertheless, Mello, being Mello, wasn't ready to give up his beauty sleep simply because someone else was tired.

"Yeah, look, can you come get me, Zakk?" Mello spoke softer, huskier, "Please? I'll make it worth your while..."

A sound, like a bed creaking, came form the phone. Mello imagined him heaving himself up, just in case there might be some skin involved. Mello was amused. Zakk was twenty, three years older than Mello, although Mello never gave out his age to anyone. He assumed most people probably thought he was even younger.

"_You are incorrigible, Marshmellow_..." Mello could hear the smile in Zakk's voice.

"Baby, your marshmellow's getting cold..." Mello was getting caught up in the high of his risque behavior. A word flit across his mind: _...impulsive..._and a voice, too. Where had he heard someone say that, describing him? He had gotten so good at repressing memories...Fortunately, Zakk yanked him out of his reverie.

"_I'll get my car. What streets are you at?"_

Mello told him and gratefully hung up the as soon as it got quiet he was again barraged with the voice:..._impulsive..._ Maybe because of what Matt said, about Mello's secret fascination with the past, but as the word 'impulsive' slipped into Mello's consciousness, the voice, and _face_, became painfully clear.

_The lights were flourescent and Mello felt exceedingly warm. He was standing atop the main kitchen's countertop, a truffle clasped in one sticky hand. The scents came back to him, powerful and fleeting: chocolate from the melting truffle, lilacs in a jar beside the sink, fresh paint and...whatever Near smelled like. Almost a fruity scent. The boy was standing in the doorway holding Mr. Einstein, his teddy bear. The sleeves of his pajamas were too long, and Near's hands disappeared inside them. _

_"What are you doing, Emmy?" Near's nickname for Mello, because he was "M" at Whammy's. Mello often called Near 'Pooh', much to Near's disappointment. _

_" 'Nuffing." Mello's mouth was full of chocolate. Forbidden chocolate. L's stash. _

_"That's Ewo's ('L's', but at the time Near had a difficult time with the letter.) _

_Mello rolled his eyes, and swallowed the mouthful of gooey chocolate. _

_"Why shouldn't I get any?" He said, hoping against hope Roger wouldn't come in. _

_Near just smiled at him and pointed his finger at Mello. _

_"You're _im-_pulll_-sive."

And what had Mello wanted right then? Not the chocolate anymore, certainly. Impulsiveness was Mello's _thing._ Just back then he didn't know how it would destroy him. Near knew. Near was the spectator, and Mello the frantic performer.

_Near twisted his hair between his fingers. _

_"I won't tell. Pwomise." _

_Mello bit his lip. His whole being ached for Near. He hoped Near wouldn't tell if Mello decided to do anything brash because of his aching. _

_"Thanks, Near-chan." Mello's smile was genuine. _

And then, as quickly as it had come, the memory faded away. Mello sat against the building, his mind racing. Why was he thinking about Near _now?_ It had been years since he'd seen him, and for all Mello knew, he could be dead. Or fifteen years old. When Mello had turned criminal to reach his goals, what had Near done? Was he still at the Wammy House, waiting to succeed L? Sitting on the floor, alone, for three years? Was he thinking about Mello?


End file.
